I have a Lucid Air Dream Edition. I love the vehicle when it works, but there are serious concerns I have that make it outright dangerous to drive. As a fan of Lucid, I am questioning whether or not I am allowing my enthusiasm as an early adopter and my personal sentiment affect my judgment and not heeding the advice of my counsel. I wanted to get feedback here and also document my concerns in case anyone else has had the same experience.
If you look at my prior posts, you’ll see that I had another incident where a 21” tire blow out subsequently resulted in me not being able to drive the vehicle for close to three months because I needed to wait for Lucid engineers to develop a repair procedure for a cracked steering knuckle. It was in the shop from May 9 until July 16, but I also had to wait weeks before and after after paying for 19” wheels and tires to prevent that from happening again. Throughout that repair, my biggest complaint was the lack of communication. All I wanted was a firm date so that I could plan my life, but I was told by the body shop that Lucid engineers needed time. I would need to follow up with the body shop, who would defer me to Lucid, and then Lucid would defer me back to the body shop. Not once did I feel as if Lucid proactively reached out to me to explain what was going on, and I am still disheartened by that whole situation.
When I got my Lucid back in July, I was thrilled just to see it again. But I have had three major defects since then, and it pains me to say that Lucid’s customer service has only gotten worse in the months leading up to now. The three issues I outline below were reported promptly, but I am bewildered as to why I never got a call back or someone assigned to address any of the issues in the months that followed.
(1) Retracting Pilot panel: Upon getting the vehicle back, I reported an issue on July 18 where the retractable center display kept retracting. I was not able to bring it back down if I retracted it to access the storage compartment. After multiple attempts, the pilot cockpit would then retract half way and act as if it was fully down, thus preventing me from seeing critical Drive information. The only way for me to keep the display down was to forcibly hold it in place while it attempted to retract, which would work at times and allow me to drive the car. But imagine driving in New York City, reaching for the cup holder, accidentally swiping up on the panel causing it to retract, and not being able to bring it back down. I have had to pull over multiple times to avoid dangerous situations because I couldn’t adjust my mirrors. Despite calling Lucid customer care every other week, the last update I got from Customer Care was that the display was delivered weeks ago but they don’t know why I never got a call back.
(2) Frunk damaging front bumper panels: when utilizing my frunk, I would hear a crunching sound as if the Lucid chrome panels were getting crushed. I avoided using the frunk. After a while, I started to notice alignment issues with the front LIDAR camera and the adjacent decorative grills. Again, reported without response.
(3) Rear Sensor problems: I have had issues with the vehicles rear sensors and auto park since the day I got it. Distance detection is often inaccurate and there is significant lag when using the cameras, rendering it unreliable. When using the the auto park feature, it will outright fail to detect the distance of the rear vehicle while parallel parking and accelerate far too quickly. Although the vehicle cameras detect the parallel space, the Lucid would continue to back into the rear vehicle forcing me to manually intervene. Obviously, one could just as easily say — don’t use auto park — so I don’t, but my concern is with regard to whether or not this was a software issue or if it was a precursor for a bigger issue with the vehicle’s rear sensors.
I reported all of these issues, amongst others, immediately to Lucid customer care months ago. I call so often that I know some of the very nice call center reps on a first name basis. The issue is that even they are bewildered as to why I am not getting call backs or updates. They were able to tell me that parts were ordered and ready, but would not be able to get a technician dispatched. Apparently there were staffing problems and turnover in my region in NY.
——
After all these months of not hearing back from Lucid about the issues I outlined above, I had a horrific and life threatening experience on September 21. I was on a busy service road to get onto an expressway and I suddenly get a message on screen that said there was a drive fault and I needed to contact Lucid customer care immediately. It gave me a 5 minutes to operate the vehicle. Upon calling customer care, they instructed me to get to a safe place but it was not possible in that situation given the narrow service road.
Honestly, I was panicking at that moment because people were honking and trying to get around me. It was not exactly safe for me to get out of the vehicle to reboot it. I was instructed to start the car using the key card, an ordeal in itself, which worked and all seemed okay and I started driving.
Then, after about ten seconds, the whole car blacked out on me and was completely unresponsive. It was shocking to me how the car could boot up as if nothing was wrong and then black out without any notice.
Eventually, I was able to get the car back home, but not without incident. The vehicle was towed to a Hollis body shop in MA for diagnostics.
I got a call from Stephen, Lucid’s Service Manager, who informed me that the car would need to be transported to MA to further diagnose the battery fault.
After not getting any response from Lucid in the past few months, I am thankful that Stephen reached out to me and said that he will be my primary contact.
Has anyone else in the Northeast had issues with service? Should I escalate this?
-JC
If you look at my prior posts, you’ll see that I had another incident where a 21” tire blow out subsequently resulted in me not being able to drive the vehicle for close to three months because I needed to wait for Lucid engineers to develop a repair procedure for a cracked steering knuckle. It was in the shop from May 9 until July 16, but I also had to wait weeks before and after after paying for 19” wheels and tires to prevent that from happening again. Throughout that repair, my biggest complaint was the lack of communication. All I wanted was a firm date so that I could plan my life, but I was told by the body shop that Lucid engineers needed time. I would need to follow up with the body shop, who would defer me to Lucid, and then Lucid would defer me back to the body shop. Not once did I feel as if Lucid proactively reached out to me to explain what was going on, and I am still disheartened by that whole situation.
When I got my Lucid back in July, I was thrilled just to see it again. But I have had three major defects since then, and it pains me to say that Lucid’s customer service has only gotten worse in the months leading up to now. The three issues I outline below were reported promptly, but I am bewildered as to why I never got a call back or someone assigned to address any of the issues in the months that followed.
(1) Retracting Pilot panel: Upon getting the vehicle back, I reported an issue on July 18 where the retractable center display kept retracting. I was not able to bring it back down if I retracted it to access the storage compartment. After multiple attempts, the pilot cockpit would then retract half way and act as if it was fully down, thus preventing me from seeing critical Drive information. The only way for me to keep the display down was to forcibly hold it in place while it attempted to retract, which would work at times and allow me to drive the car. But imagine driving in New York City, reaching for the cup holder, accidentally swiping up on the panel causing it to retract, and not being able to bring it back down. I have had to pull over multiple times to avoid dangerous situations because I couldn’t adjust my mirrors. Despite calling Lucid customer care every other week, the last update I got from Customer Care was that the display was delivered weeks ago but they don’t know why I never got a call back.
(2) Frunk damaging front bumper panels: when utilizing my frunk, I would hear a crunching sound as if the Lucid chrome panels were getting crushed. I avoided using the frunk. After a while, I started to notice alignment issues with the front LIDAR camera and the adjacent decorative grills. Again, reported without response.
(3) Rear Sensor problems: I have had issues with the vehicles rear sensors and auto park since the day I got it. Distance detection is often inaccurate and there is significant lag when using the cameras, rendering it unreliable. When using the the auto park feature, it will outright fail to detect the distance of the rear vehicle while parallel parking and accelerate far too quickly. Although the vehicle cameras detect the parallel space, the Lucid would continue to back into the rear vehicle forcing me to manually intervene. Obviously, one could just as easily say — don’t use auto park — so I don’t, but my concern is with regard to whether or not this was a software issue or if it was a precursor for a bigger issue with the vehicle’s rear sensors.
I reported all of these issues, amongst others, immediately to Lucid customer care months ago. I call so often that I know some of the very nice call center reps on a first name basis. The issue is that even they are bewildered as to why I am not getting call backs or updates. They were able to tell me that parts were ordered and ready, but would not be able to get a technician dispatched. Apparently there were staffing problems and turnover in my region in NY.
——
After all these months of not hearing back from Lucid about the issues I outlined above, I had a horrific and life threatening experience on September 21. I was on a busy service road to get onto an expressway and I suddenly get a message on screen that said there was a drive fault and I needed to contact Lucid customer care immediately. It gave me a 5 minutes to operate the vehicle. Upon calling customer care, they instructed me to get to a safe place but it was not possible in that situation given the narrow service road.
Honestly, I was panicking at that moment because people were honking and trying to get around me. It was not exactly safe for me to get out of the vehicle to reboot it. I was instructed to start the car using the key card, an ordeal in itself, which worked and all seemed okay and I started driving.
Then, after about ten seconds, the whole car blacked out on me and was completely unresponsive. It was shocking to me how the car could boot up as if nothing was wrong and then black out without any notice.
Eventually, I was able to get the car back home, but not without incident. The vehicle was towed to a Hollis body shop in MA for diagnostics.
I got a call from Stephen, Lucid’s Service Manager, who informed me that the car would need to be transported to MA to further diagnose the battery fault.
After not getting any response from Lucid in the past few months, I am thankful that Stephen reached out to me and said that he will be my primary contact.
Has anyone else in the Northeast had issues with service? Should I escalate this?
-JC
